Persona 4 Arena Ultimax Review – A Jack of all trades, master of none
Persona 4 Arena Ultimax is a fighting game based around the Persona 4 game, technically an updated version of Persona 4 Arena, which was well loved by fans. The game which in typical Atlus style is way more convoluted than it has to be, acts as a sequel to both Persona 3 and 4. In it’s story mode at least. But, and this is just a guess is saves somewhat by being developed together with Arc System Works.
Fighting game or JRPG?
I like this game but that’s actually it’s biggest problem. I like it, not because it’s specifically good at anything or brings anything to the fighting game genre that hasn’t been done before but because it’s a bit of lazy fun between other, better games. Persona 4 Arena does separate certain styles and that’s sorely needed. There’s a story mode, which takes the definition of story very literally. It has a choice to have the CPU play for the player if they don’t want to fight the few battles that do show up. Problem is, there’s hardly any gameplay to begin with, I can’t even liken it to a visual novel because at least a visual novel has choices to make (however limited) in order to continue the story route. This is just “watch” and “fight sometimes.” Honestly makes me wonder why the story mode is even there, it feels like an afterthought, or a story that those at Atlus wanted to tell but couldn’t find the medium to do so. Ergo it’s just been dumped onto this game. I’d have no problem with that considering it’s a fighting game but it just makes you wonder, why on Earth is it even there?
The new Golden Arena Mode is very JRPG, allowing the player to grind levels for their favourite fighter and learn skills but again. It’s a repetitive experience which usually doesn’t bother me but you can only grind one character at a time. Which, in a game that encourages players to play with as many characters as possible in order to master their moves and special moves along with point based combo cancelling just doesn’t make sense. The fact is that this isn’t built to be a button masher, in fact if you try to button mash your way to victory you’ll often times be punished badly. You need to know what to do with who, the game encourages it. So making a game like that but also making a mode that makes a long grind even more difficult just feels really counter productive.
It’s pick up and play but not
Like I said, I do like this game but it’s style is very “pick up and play” less so when you actually realise just how deep the mechanics go. It’s like the devs just had no idea what they wanted this game to be so they just went “yeah just make it everything.” I don’t think I need to point out the biggest issue with that kind of attitude. Overall the game feels really well polished but the more you play the more you realise just how superficial the game is. It looks great but the direction of it is so confused it just ends up frustrating the average player.
This is definitely one that Persona fans will likely love but anyone who’s not mad about Persona likely won’t. It’s relatively cheap price point (£25) will make it an easy pick up for some people who just want something to play between games but there are so many other better games out there that I find it impossible to recommend it even for that.
